icts of the city of
Brest-Litovsk, where for centuries celebrated scholars of our
people dwelt, nothing better was done by the crown to compensate
us for our houses.[42] The same occurred at the expulsion from
St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Nikolayev, Alexandrov, Sebastopol,
etc., but as it did not affect so large a mass, nor injure us to
so great an extent, we bore the injury silently. Alas, this is
not the case at present. We should gladly quit the country,
gladly should we emigrate to America, Texas, and especially to
Palestine under English protection, if, on the one hand, we had
the means and, on the other, the Government would permit us.[43]

This Exportation Law of Nicholas I, the result of a lawsuit between a
Jew and a nobleman living on the eastern frontier, which had been
decided by the supreme court in favor of the former, aroused much
excitement in every civilized country of Europe. It was before
anti-Semitism was in flower, and the people of the time were more
responsive even than during the later Kishinev massacres. Indignation
meetings were held. Both Jews and Gentiles, not only abroad, but even in
Russia, protested. Prayers were offered for the unfortunate. Cremieux in
France and Rabbi Philippson in Germany appealed to the public. All to no
effect. Grief was especially manifest among English Jews, always the
first to feel when their fellow-Jews in other countries suffer, and
Grace Aguilar, like Rachel weeping over her children, lamented over her
Russian brethren:

Ay, death! for such is exile--fearful doom,
From homes expelled yet still to Poland chain'd;
Till want and famine mind and life consume,
And sorrow's poison'd chalice all is drained.
O God, that this should be! that one frail man
Hath power to crush a nation 'neath his ban.

At this critical period, Moses Montefiore, encouraged by his success in
refuting the blood accusation at Damascus, and stimulated by the many
petitions he had received from Russia, Germany, France, Italy, England,
and America, undertook the philanthropic mission of interceding with the
czar on behalf of his coreligionists. It is natural to suspect that no
trouble is entirely undeserved; it is but human to sympathize with our
friends, and yet regard their suffering as a judgment rather than a
misfortune. But Montefiore's trip to Russia dispelled the last trace of
suspicion against the Russian Jews. In spite of their pove